


Joy in Mudville

by 51PegasiB



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Baseball, Friendship, Steve Rogers & Thor Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 04:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51PegasiB/pseuds/51PegasiB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fluffy piece in which Steve teaches Thor to play baseball. (I am not a baseball expert, so please forgive incompleteness and please feel free to make me aware of errors.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Joy in Mudville

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my tumblr, all I did was a quick revision. I'm going to be polishing and posting more stuff from there while I'm still working on the long-form stuff.

It was a cloudy day, when Steve took Thor out to the diamond.

Not the sort of clouds that threatened rain -- they were the high, bright puffy sort with gaps that showed bright corners of blue sky —- a promise that brighter days were ahead.

Of course, all that could change in a moment when Thor was around, but for the moment the clouds only meant that you wouldn’t get sun-blinded when you were playing left field.

Steve had a lot of experience in left field. He had spent long afternoons waiting for anyone to even come close to hitting the ball that far while Bucky played first base.

Often-times, after the neighborhood games, Bucky would stick around with him and toss the ball around and let him get a few hits in, with pitches that Steve was pretty sure Bucky aimed to bounce right off his bat.

He shook his head, pulled the cap off his head and scratched underneath, then slapped it back on.

“We have a good day for it,” he said to the Asgardian.

He turned to look at Thor with a smile.

“Okay, the game isn’t very complicated. That’s part of the beauty of it.”

Thor nodded, a serious look on his face.

Steve thought he looked a little silly with his hair pulled back into a pony tail and a ball cap on, but when Tony had gotten wind of their little plan, he had outfitted the two man team with the works.

It had been all Steve could do to keep Thor from wearing the full uniform Tony bought for him, complete with the high socks. He had kept the Asgardian to just the ball cap (complete with an Avengers logo Steve was half-certain Tony had hired someone to design for the purpose) and the cleats, which actually made sense.

They had hauled the bag full of bats and balls and gloves out to the field during the middle of a school day, so they wouldn’t interrupt the kids playing.

Tony had jokingly volunteered to rent out Ebbets Field for them, and Steve had protested vociferously for a while before he remembered that it had been torn down while he was frozen.

He sighed. At least he could still do this. Probably better than he’d ever been able to, before.

“Okay, let’s start with tossing the ball around,” he said. “And I’ll explain some things while we do.”

He fished in the bag and got out two gloves and tossed one to Thor.

He slid his left hand into one and slammed his fist into it a few times. The glove was stiff and shiny and new. It smelled good.

He pulled out a ball and tossed that into the glove a few times, appreciating the slap of the ball’s case into the leather.

He grinned.

He turned to Thor who had been imitating what he was doing.

“Okay,” he said. “The glove protects your hand - maybe not such a big deal for us, but it also extends your reach. You can catch the ball beyond the tips of where your fingers would normally be, you see?” he said.

“Indeed, I do see. The glove is stiff, though, it limits my mobility and dexterity,” Thor was making a face at the glove.

“Part of that is how new they are. A glove will loosen up over time and conform to your hand, but you’ve got to use it to make that happen.”

“Ahh. As how one should not do a full day’s march in newly-made boots!”

“You got it, Thor,” replied Steve. “That’s the same kind of thing.”

“Here, I’m going to toss the ball to you a few times, and you try to catch it. We’ll start out easily. The more you pop the ball up when you toss it, the easier it is to catch, but the slower it gets to the other person. Speed and range are both factors for success, so we’ll start out easy and get faster and straighter.”

Steve tossed the ball in a gentle arc and Thor reached out with the glove and caught it, Steve held up his glove.

“Throw it back to me,” he said. Thor did so, also in a gentle arc. Steve caught it and took a step back. He tossed it again. It felt good to be able to do this. His arm didn’t hurt. His accuracy was already better than it ever was before the war, and nothing was winding him or making him sneeze. He kind of wished Bucky could be here to see how well he was doing.

He sighed, again, and adjusted his cap before he made the next throw.

They had gotten quite a ways apart before Thor missed a ball. To be fair, Steve had thrown it pretty high.

As Thor leaned down to pick it up, Steve called to him.

“Bring it back in! Let’s try the next part.”

“Captain, you haven’t explained how the throwing and catching is part of this game of yours.”

“I’ll explain it now,” he said, fishing two bats out of the bag. There were bats made of wood and of aluminum. He pulled two wooden ones out of the bag and handed one to Thor.

“This is one of the lightest clubs I’ve ever encountered,” said the demi-god. “How could it be useful? It’s like a child’s toy.”

“Well, plenty of children play this game,” responded Steve. “I did. Kids still do. I saw them on television.”

He still couldn’t believe they broadcasted the little league championships. It seemed like that kind of pressure would take the fun out of it.

“So, the point of the game,” he said to Thor, then paused and walked to the pitcher’s mound, gesturing with the bat as he described the game.

“One team has the field. They have a man here,” he pointed to the dirt beneath his feet, “called the pitcher. There are men at each of the bases.”

Steve spun as he pointed them out.

“First, second, third, home,” he said, as he completed his revolution.

“The first baseman covers first base. The second baseman takes a position somewhere between first and second, ready to run for second if he needs to. There’s an extra man called a shortstop that takes up position between second and third, then there’s a third baseman and a catcher.”

“There are also three guys in the outfield. That’s the grassy area outside the dirt,” he said. “One at the center position, one in right field and one in left field.”

He gestured again, pointing out where the men would stand as he described the positions.

“No one but the pitcher and catcher really does anything till the ball is in play.”

“And all these men are on the same team?” asked Thor. “Where does the other team come in?”

“They’re the batters,” he said. “They take these clubs. The pitcher throws the ball and tries to get it past them. If he succeeds, the catcher grabs the ball and it’s a strike. If they hit the ball, they try to make a run for the base.”

“They have to touch each base on the way around the diamond,” Steve said. “If they don’t, the run isn’t valid.”

“The guys in the field - their job is to tap the batter out. If they catch his ball right away, he’s out. If they miss catching it at first, they can retrieve the ball and tap him out. You can’t tap a runner out unless you have the ball. Usually the quickest way to get the ball to the right place is to throw it to the closest guy,” he said.

“That is why we practiced the throwing and catching,” said Thor, with a grin.

“You got it, buddy.”

“So this is a game of strength and speed at hurling and a game of precision clubbing. One must try to hit the ball between these…fielders.”

“Exactly,” said Steve.

“There are more rules, but that’s the gist of it,” he added.

“Do you want to try batting?” Steve asked the demi-god.

“I will attempt to honor my ancestors with a display of skill,” the asgardian responded.

Steve grinned. “Don’t worry too much about your ancestors. It takes a while to get the hang of it. I’ll pitch you a few.”

Steve went to put his bat back down and picked up the glove and ball, again. He strode out to the pitcher’s mound and scratched his feet in the dirt the way he’d seen so many others do.

He looked at Thor and realized he was being premature.

Steve ran up to him.

“You have to stand basically inside this box, when you bat,” he said. “When you swing the bat, you should be swinging right over home plate. And when I throw the ball, it should come in at a height between here,” he indicated Thor’s shoulders, “and here,” he indicated his knees. “And it can’t be too close in to your body, or too far away. If I break any of those rules, it isn’t a strike.”

“You must throw right to me! How is this game a contest?”

“Oh,” grinned Steve, “Folks get tricky. And like I said, It’s harder than it looks.”

Steve walked back out to the mound and stood sideways, wound up and threw as straight a pitch as he could manage across the plate.

Thor swung too early and too aggressively and missed.

He went to grab the ball where it had bounced off the backstop behind him and Steve ran up.

“That was pretty good form. You want to stand sideways and swing from the shoulder.”

“You have to feel where the bat is and pay attention to where I’m throwing. Keep your eye on the ball,”

He delivered the platitude with a sudden awareness that it was likely the first time the Asgardian had heard it.

Steve grinned as he jogged back out to the mound.

“Okay!” he called.

He swung his arm and delivered another straight pitch. This time, Thor concentrated too long and swung too late.

It wasn’t till the fifth pitch that the demi-god got a piece of the ball.

“And now, I run?” he boomed across the field.

“Well, you could, but I’ve already got the ball, so if you did and this was a real game, I’d throw to first, and you’d be out,” said Steve.

“How does the other team score any points if one team is always on the club side?” asked Thor.

“Well, they switch sides once per inning,” said Steve.

“There are nine innings in a game and each team plays offense for one half of each inning - that’s batting, and plays defense for the other half - that’s having your guys in the field,” he added.

“Oh, and they call the points runs,” he said. “If you hit the ball so far that no one can catch it, it’s called a home run.”

“I have heard that expression,” said Thor. “It is used for a positive thing.”

“Well, it started out in baseball,” said Steve. “This is where the positive association was built.”

“Throw at me some more times, my friend! I would try batting again.”

Steve did, getting slowly more aggressive and sneaky with his pitches. Thor got in a few really good hits, but it was a learned skill, even for a godlike alien, apparently.

Then Thor insisted on trying to pitch and Steve stepped up to bat. He amazed himself by, on the first one Thor put across the plate, knocking it well out of the diamond into the far outfield.

Steve’s mouth opened. as he watched the ball go. Thor turned to watch it, too, and turned back to his friend.

“Aren’t you supposed to run? Is this not the home run of which you spoke?”

The super-soldier grinned and took a lap around the bases. Then he went to look for the ball, and by the time he came back, defeated and totally stymied as to where it had gone to, Thor had been surrounded by a mob of school kids clamoring for his autograph. A similar mob swamped Steve and he grinned and signed gloves and balls and bats for a half an hour or so while Thor explained what they had been doing there.

“The Captain has been educating me in your game of baseball. Do you all play?” he was asking the children.

They cheered.

“It is more difficult than it first appears. This is a game of strategy and precision worthy of a warrior’s mind,” said Thor, with a grin.

They cheered again.

By the time they got away, it was almost dark.

“Thank you for teaching me the ways of your childhood game, my friend,” said Thor as they were headed home.

“It was my pleasure, really.”

“It is a pity there are only six of us, at present. That is insufficient for a team.” said Thor.

“I doubt that some of the group would be interested in playing, anyway,” he said. “I think the game is considered pretty old-fashioned, nowadays.”

“You always say that about the things you care about, Captain, with a diffident air that suggests you think no one else values the things you value. I think you are wrong. I think those children we encountered would agree.”

Steve grinned, thinking about their eager faces, and nodded.

He was pretty sure, when the Mets invited him to throw out the first pitch at a home game, a few months later, that Thor had said something to Stark, and that Stark had pulled some strings, but looking around the stadium where there was a cheering crowd that contained all of his teammates and, he had been informed, a host of SHIELD agents who had clamored for tickets, he didn’t really care how he had gotten here.

He stood on the pitcher’s mound, looked to the side, wound up and threw the ball.

The audience roared in approval.

Then he went and took a place in the stands by the rest of the team and ate peanuts and hot dogs and cheered with everyone else.

It felt a little bit like home.


End file.
